All of One Peace: Essays on Nonviolence [Hardcover]

Colman McCarthy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1994

A writer for the Washington Post for twenty-five years, Colman McCarthy is well respected as a pacifist, teacher, journalist, and advocate of nonviolence. In his twice-weekly columns which are nationally syndicated, he has extolled nonviolence as both a philosophy and a practical way of life. As a high-school, college, and law school teacher, he has taught the principles and history of nonviolence to more than three thousand students in the past decade.

What McCarthy has written over the years is, as he puts it, all of one peace. His consistency of vision derives from the indwelling of nonviolence. He blames no one for the culture of violence in which we live, but for a quarter-century he has spoken out honestly and passionately against that culture. All of One Peace is a major part of the body of work that has come to stand for integrity, reason, and candor in a time marked by lies, violence, and absurdity.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A collection of essays by a syndicated Washington Post columnist whose radically nonviolent ethos regularly breaks ranks with the establishment liberal crowd. In 1982 McCarthy founded the Center for Teaching Peace, an organization that supports courses on nonviolence, and some of his best columns here recall those classrooms: How college students know ``more about the Bataan death march than Gandhi's salt march'' and how peace education might counteract our society's violent impulses. He critiques the pre-Gulf War flights of rhetoric as ``a textbook example of how not to manage conflict'' and tartly suggests that CNN should more accurately label its programming ``Slaughter in the Gulf.'' If his opposition to the death penalty is predictable, he ups the ante, challenging vengeance-seekers to draw and quarter murderers. He tries to balance the rights of women seeking abortion with the rights of unborn children--which he views as living beings; he supports both those offering alternatives to abortion as well as to overburdened new mothers. McCarthy criticizes Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall for supporting abortion rights and also offers several forceful columns on animal rights, including a spirited account of a vegetarian Thanksgiving. Columns on so-called ``troublesome women,'' such as Montana congresswoman Jeannette Rankin and singer/activist Joan Baez, as well as his defenses of bicycle riding are also good, but his warmhearted columns on baseball, however welcome in a daily newspaper, seem out of place in this package. The brevity of the columns leaves some issues undeveloped, and McCarthy avoids some hard questions--no discussion of the Holocaust here--but he's still an admirable and unusual voice in American journalism. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Colman McCarthy is a columnist for the Washington Post. He is the founder and director of the Center for Teaching Peace and is on the adjunct faculty at Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Maryland.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (May 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813520967
• ISBN-13: 978-0813520964
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,575,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Colman McCarthy Should be Mandatory Reading, July 26, 2001

By 

Jeff Hale (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All of One Peace: Essays on Nonviolence (Paperback)

Everyone claims they want a more peaceful world, but they do not take steps to create a such a world. Colman McCarthy believes that peace can be taught, and the transformation that took place witin myself when I read his book is evidence that he is correct.

Colman McCarthy is eloquent, witty, and committed to the pacifist position. The collection of essays is enjoyable to read and will expose the reader to new perspectives. Anyone who wants to decrease the suffering in the world should read All of One Peace.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Many Good Thoughts, February 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: All of One Peace: Essays on Nonviolence (Paperback)

I had Coleman McCarthy as a professor while an undergrad at the Catholic University of America. This book is a good focus of the lessons he taught in class about non-violence and the need to find peaceful resolutions to conflict. While a I might not agree with some of his words, one is unable to deny that the content sparks thoughts on issues regarding the death penalty, abortion, animal rights, the use of weapons and war. This a great book for teachers who are trying to find more contemporary ways to teach about non-violence.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great essay to reflect upon, spark conversation, February 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: All of One Peace: Essays on Nonviolence (Paperback)

I've read a number of the essays in this book, and I have found many of them to be thought provoking and insightful as well as easy to read. I read them while I was devoting a year of my life to volunteer work, and to be able to associate the themes of the book to what I was doing was a wonderful experience.